Reclaiming Her Time, Once Again

Maxine Waters, U.S Representative of the California’s 43rd congressional, had made headlines again, “Reclaiming Her Time.”

Back in July of 2017, Waters challenged Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing. Mnuchin wasn’t fully explaining his ideas and couldn’t go into depth about it. Rep. Waters decided to interrogate him in order to get explanations, but Mnuchin could not give her the answers she needed.

Waters then decided to continue to press him to answer her questions by repeating “reclaiming my time.” This phrase became used by almost everyone when it came to Trump’s administration’s misogyny, racism and problematic issues. On Tuesday, January 30, 2018, President Donald Trump had his first State of the Union address. While some within Congress were looking forward to the President’s first SOTU, others were not so thrilled about it. Democrats have already not been keen on Trump’s statements that he has made about subjects like immigration, gun laws and what he calls s***hole countries.

Therefore a good amount of the politicians decided to boycott the SOTU; some of those politicians being Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Juan Vargas (D-CA) while saying, “POTUS continues to disrespect women, insult people of color, and attack our immigrant communities. I will not be attending the State of the Union— I stand in solidarity with all the people he has and continues to disrespect.”

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) joined the boycott chiming in on Twitter saying, “I cannot in good consciousness attend the SOTU address after the President went so low in his remarks about Haiti & African nations. It would be hypocrisy to go to an event at which he is honored.”

Maxine Waters was one influential Democrat who decided to have a quite different reaction to President Trump’s State of the Union Address. She decided to have her own address that was aired on BET’s program “Angela Rye’s State of the Union” the same time that President Trump’s SOTU was aired to national television. When interviewed on CBS News she said, “Trump has done nothing…he should be an understanding President,” she goes on to say how he should be investing in housing and education. Her message on BET was one that informed the public greatly instead of being seen as a moment to bash the President. Waters’ remarks were not supposed to represent the Democrat party as a whole. Additionally, Representative Kennedy will give his response in the near future. She was just given the right platform to inform the public about the harsh reality. When Rep. Waters was asked why she would not attend the State of the Union she said, “Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar?”

It’s safe to say that once again, Rep. Maxine has once again reclaimed her time. Whether President Trump is okay with it or not, Waters will always keep him in check and have him on his toes throughout his whole Presidency.